


Gutter

by Zooheaded



Category: True Detective
Genre: "The Good Years", 2001, Dead child, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Shark infested waters, Sickfic, Synesthesia, casefic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-13 23:02:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4540779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zooheaded/pseuds/Zooheaded
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Zachary Dubois was shaking. He was sweaty. His greasy hair was tied back into a messy, varnishy brown ponytail, eyes cast down to dart over his greasy fingers that perched upon the table, haloed in a line of condensation. Rust knew he was guilty the moment he walked into the room, knew he was guilty from the paperwork alone that he'd skimmed out in the hallway not twenty minutes gone, could smell the sweet-rot stench of his guilt like blood in the water, but Geraci needed a confession, and that fat fuck couldn't inspire a salmon to spawn or the sun to set, let alone pull information out of a teenager. So here Rust was, feeling a bead of sweat stroke down the side of his neck like an icy finger. He wouldn't shudder, and he wouldn't wipe it away, not with Rummy's beady little eyes watching him from the other side of the two way mirror. He'd sooner die.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be part of something else but because I cannot be stopped it got way longer than it had any right to, so it's here all by itself. Trying to work out which sense tends to trigger another is a huge pain in the ass. Shark Rust is my favorite Rust. Have some tropy sickfic cleverly disguised as police work.
> 
> alternate title: Take your shark to the vet day

[Lafayette, Louisiana July 2001]

 

“Now, I'm not saying you did or you didn't, but fact of the matter is... we got a dead store clerk at a 711 with a backpack full of percocets, and you as his best buddy with a little pill problem.” Rust says, spreading both of his hands out upon the cool surface of the interrogation room table on either side of the case notes, familiar tones ringing in his head. Fittingly, it'd always tasted like wet cardboard inside the box, and the high pitched, piano wire grating smell of old piss that lingered there always lived inside his nostrils for a good forty minutes after exit.

Zachary Dubois was shaking. He was sweaty. His greasy hair was tied back into a messy, varnishy brown ponytail, eyes cast down to dart over his greasy fingers that perched upon the table, haloed in a line of condensation. Rust knew he was guilty the moment he walked into the room, knew he was guilty from the paperwork alone that he'd skimmed out in the hallway not twenty minutes gone, could smell the sweet-rot stench of his guilt like blood in the water, but Geraci needed a confession, and that fat fuck couldn't inspire a salmon to spawn or the sun to set, let alone pull information out of a teenager. So here Rust was, feeling a bead of sweat stroke down the side of his neck like an icy finger. He wouldn't shudder, and he wouldn't wipe it away, not with Rummy's beady little eyes watching him from the other side of the two way mirror. He'd sooner die.

Rust swallows, but nothing moistens the dry patch that burns inside the terrarium of his throat like a miniature desert. He thinks about the three hours of sleep he managed to get last night, his coffee going cold on his desk, Marty picking through his lunch like a bird sorting through nesting material, but only for a moment. He wanted this shit over and done with so that he could go back to work and lapses in concentration only dragged it out.

“Percocets. You know what those are? Hm?” he asks, folding his hands back up over his arms and pacing in a slow arc to the corner of the room and back, observing the buzzing fluorescent ceiling light as though he's never seen it before, when by this point, he could draw it perfect from memory. The slight insect-like vibrating sound that smelled like burning tinfoil, every cracked facet of the plastic covering the bulb seared permanently into his mind like an iron brand. The light drives through his eyes and into the back of his skull like a needle and he let the feeling wash over him, almost marveling at the pain reverberating to the front of his face.

“P-pain meds. Pain killers,” Zachary says. A bead of clear snot gathers at the very tip of his nose, glittering like morning dew.

“Mmmhm. Oxycodone. You in a lot of pain Zachary?”

Zachary's eyes wavered on Rust's, then darted around the room like the swimming flight of a Gulf shiner. “Y-Y-”

Rust inclined his head, feigning an expression of innocent confusion. “Yes? You, a spry youth still in the cresting sunrise of his life, is in so much pain that he needs four full bottles of percs stolen from the purses of a couple a' old biddies? People who actually have chronic pain?”

“What would you say about somebody like that? Somebody like you?” Rust continues, “Think you might say that... maybe they have a problem?”

“Y-yeah, th-they might have a-a problem...” Zachary echoes, voice weak, and tears already forming in the corners of his eyes.

Rust nods to himself, breathing out slow through his mouth. The pain kick-starting in the back of his head has migrated and pulses strong into his left ear. The sounds that come in that side are slightly muffled like he's lying half in water. It has been like this for four days, but by this point Rust's become good at ignoring it. He keeps his eyes hooded, trying not to look directly at the light and folds his stiff body into the cheap metal chair set on his side of the table, collapsing down into it like a dollar store action figure, his limbs held to his torso with metal loops and rubber bands. The chair legs scrape briefly over the cement floor like that nails on a chalkboard scent of iodine.

A pack of cigarettes is produced, one tapped out. The click of a lighter and the subtle waver of hypnotic orange flame. That first inhale and Rust feels the relief of the nicotine rich smoke crawling into his lungs like the breath of God, and he doesn't give six fucks from Sunday that they're not allowed to smoke inside the building anymore. The relaxation spreads out through rigor mortised muscles like sinking into the warmth of a drawn bath, and he wants that, because it's far too fucking cold in here. For a moment the ache in his head dissipates, but then the pressure begins to build again.

“I'd offer, but you ain't of age yet.” Rust says through an exhale of smoke, pushing the pack and lighter back into the pocket of his shirt. One hand pinches the cigarette at the base between pointer finger and thumb, the other lays limp across the table, elbow hanging over the edge.

“Seventeen years old huh? Lucky break. That'll get you into the youth court. That is, unless you get tried as an adult.”

Zachary's face drains of all color in a span of seconds and Rust watches it go, the blood receding into his face to sink down and pool in his gut like a bellyful of hot soup. Rust wasn't entirely sure if the intercom was on, spitting their words out echoed and tinny to the detectives on the other side of the mirror, but he could assume that if Geraci was involved, he'd have the fucking speaker pressed to his bulbous, sweaty head like a goddamn ear trumpet.

Rust takes another drag, then exhales easy, angling the smoke out the corner of his mouth. “There was a boy in Texas, seventeen. Just like you. Famous as far as juvenile cases go. Strangled a fifteen year old girl with a belt while his buddy beat her with a toilet seat and an ashtray. When she bit him they gouged her eyes out with a screwdriver and a curtain rod.”

Zachary Dubois continued to stare at him like he was a rabbit snared within the hungry gaze of a waiting owl. “ _Jesus..._ ” he breathes, face going that sick institutional green color that tasted like aloe vera gel and kleenex tissue.

“They carved an upside down cross into her belly after. Had sex with her body. Thought the Devil would grant them boons if they offered him their souls.” Rust says, fixating on a stain that marred the collar of Zachary's shirt, eyes blinking in half measures. “They were tried as adults and got life in prison. But you didn't do anything fucked up like that did you?”

“No! _Fuck_ no, Jesus I didn't-”

“But you did something else maybe,” Rust says, and lets his summer blue eyes flick up to bore into woodpanel brown, “maybe you'd like to talk to me about some things?”

“Yeah, yeah, I just want to-to clear my name here sir.”

“Mmm, clear your name. Yeah.” Rust plods his head up and down and points his finger, shaking it lightly as though Zachary had revealed some great truth that had just been resting upon the tip of his tongue like a perching insect.

“Dubois. That's an interesting name. Means “from the forest.” You knew that?” Rust asks. Zachary nods. Rust nods back, rolling the cigarette between his fingers, smoke ribboning upwards to curl over his ear.

“Some say that addiction is like a forest. A black forest. Moonless. You wander through that forest, stumbling around in the dark, your hands grasping the trees like guideposts, but they only take you deeper. In this place, the sun never rises.” Rust muses, half to himself, half to a piss-pants terrified Zachary Dubois.

“You been living in those woods a long time huh? With this little pill problem of yours?”

Zachary swallows. “Yeah, y-yeah, I mean, I used pills but I didn't-”

“Didn't what?”

“I didn't... didn't _kill_ nobody-”

“Not Geoffrey Williams? Your best friend? Just wanted to find the way out of those dark woods didn't you?” Rust says, shuffling through the pages of the file one at a time with a bland, half-interest, “the ones you been lost in ever since you been born. The woods your mom and dad abandoned you in, your school teachers, you couldn't find a way out so you numbed the pain. Made your home there, built from the wood of the trees.”

The answer was but a whisper, “ _No_.”

Rust nods and stares down at the case files, running his fingers over the surface of the paper that felt course against his fingertips, over Rummy's childlike chicken scratch scrawl that not even a skilled linguistic could decipher. Sweat soaked his lower back, he could feel it growing cold on his skin from the light breeze of the air conditioner vent. “Geoffrey wouldn't give you what you needed, you asked and asked, but he wouldn't cave, you threatened him, the gun in your hand, a steel grey Glock 25, license under your Daddy's name. But maybe your hand slipped on the trigger, put a perfect hole right through the center of his forehead. Spread his grey matter all over the fucking cig and condom wall like a punk-rock Jackson pollock painting.”

“No! Oh god, oh Christ, I _didn't_ -”

“You keep telling me 'no' Zach, but see, the thing is, we got you son. Got you on the security video they had hanging above the counter. The way every convenience store, on every corner, of every city from here to Alaska, has a camera hanging above their counter.” Rust says. It's a lie of course. Half the reason they were doing this was because Geraci and Demma had done some actual bonafide goddamn police work and discovered that the security camera at this particular 711 was broken, had been broken for three months. They'd only had a hunch as to who it was, but Rust knew upon entering the box, that for once, those two cocksuckers were right on the money.

“You just want the sun to shine again. You want forgiveness. But for what though?” Rust asks, pushing the cigarette back into his mouth and steepling his fingers. Zachary was crying now, his sobs muffled coming in through Rust's left ear, but clear and babylike in his right. His face was a wet smear of tears, sweat, and snot that tasted like guilt, regret, and fear.

“For- Geoff- _oh god-_ ”

“For what now?”

“For shooting Geoff, I didn't mean to shoot him. I didn't want him to die. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Oh god-”

_There. Done._

“Mmm. You just keep on thinking about those woods Zachary, you're on your way out of them now. They're about to get a lot smaller.” Rust blinks once at the sad display before him, then grinds the nub of his cigarette out onto the table, the plastic melting into a perfect black hole. He rises, leaving the file behind, they can come in and get their own fucking confession written down. He has better shit to do. The chair scrapes again, and this time he winces at the sound.

The door handle is an ice cube under his clammy fingers and Rust's greeted with a “Jesus Christ, Cohle-” From Demma, as his shoulder bumps Steve Geraci, who doesn't give so much as a 'thank you' for doing his fucking job for him. As he walks in the direction of his desk, he can hear Steve humming out the tune to that Beatles song. _Taxman_. Some bullshit attempt to piss him off. Rust knows he's feeling a little irritable, but doesn't let himself rise to the bait. Even still, he wonders how well Rummy'd be able to hum with his mouth around a curb. Teeth splitting on the cement like styrofoam.

~=+=+=+=~

“Jesus, you look like sun-warmed dogshit. You been playing musical chairs in there? Why are you so fucking sweaty?” Marty asks the moment Rust eases back down into his squeaky office chair.

“Fucking hot in there man.” Rust answers quiet and taps out another cigarette from the crumpled pack in his shirt. The other detectives in the room skirted on the edges of his vision and his skin crawled, like he could feel their eyes sliding over him. The sudden urge to escape was brief but powerful.

Marty watches him over the top of his computer monitor, mouth full and working away on chicken ceasar salad. He tilts his head gently to the side and squints at him like Rust is a particularly confusing abstract art piece. “Can't smoke that shit in here anymore, Queseda's gonna light your ass up he sees you.”

The lighter stops midway to the cigarette perched in his mouth, his eyes dripped almost shut and pulsing in their sockets. He lets a hard breath slide out through his nose, remembering the dry ache living there. The freed cigarette is tucked back into his pocket for the moment, he plans to step outside, fuck whatever the weather is. His head feels too tight and the cold coffee he pours down his gullet sits in his stomach like a slow melting glacier. The bright white tube lights lining the ceiling shine like cold sunbeams bouncing off fresh snow. Snowblindness threatening if he lingers too long. He pushes his arms into the sleeves of his suit jacket draped over the chair with all the speed of basking alligator, sweat sticking his shirt fabric to his skin. He wishes the jacket was the blue one, but he'd worn the brown one today, and it tasted just like the cold coffee. Marty's look is easy to ignore. The small amount of warmth helps some, but not much.

Rust stares at his computer monitor, at the fabricated light burning a hole in his pupils. The grating noise of clumsily clacking keys replaces the soothing scritch sound of pens and pencils. He thinks fondly of his ledger, tucked safely into his desk drawer and lying in wait for the crime scene and DB later today. The fluorescent bright screen and scrolling wall of text blurs before his eyes, and the headache opens up in his skull like the bloom of a black dahlia.

“Rust, you want a refill baby?” Cathleen's bright smile, spread across the apple of her cheeks, appears in his peripheral vision and he thinks he should have jumped, startled somehow, his whole body tensing from toes to scalp, because that woman loved to pop right up out of fucking nowhere, but the whole room seems to be drifting by in slow motion and sounds still come in half measures. He doubted a bomb going off and blowing the break room to shrapnel would've made him bat an eye.

“Miss Cathleen,” he says in a slow drawl, “I could stand for another, thank you,” but her smile falters a little while looking at him.

“Boy, you look like death,” she says in that no-nonsense way of hers, but she pours the coffee out anyway in a small waterfall of mahogany that he fixates on, the color matching the warm brown of her skin right up to her carefully painted nails, popping out in the pleasing hose water flavored blue of robin's eggs. He drifts a little then, imagines her sitting at home on the couch, laughter bubbling out of her while she watches something funny on the TV screen, or laughs at her husband passing a joke. The nail polish brush that glides over her nails moves in precise strokes more perfect than her cursive handwriting.

“Just a little tired is all.” Rust says when the cup is full, because he feels like he should give her something back. He can feel Marty's eyes practically burning into the side of his head.

“Where's _my_ refill?” Marty asks, a petulant tone to his voice.

“You've had two already Marty, gotta go easy on the caffeine doll.” Cathleen says a little smartly, then dumps a scoop of sugar and a generous amount of cream into the plain white mug Rust usually favors, even though he always takes it black.

“A little sweetness should fix you right up sugar.” she says, then pats him on the shoulder. Her hands feel like fired brands, so warm in the brief moment they make contact. And then she's gone, off and laughing with the girl that brings in the cart of office supplies. Rust knows she'll grab three red sharpies for him along with Marty's usual three blue ink pens, the ones with the clear octagonal plastic casings that he'll lose all the caps for in the first week. That has always been the way of things. It seems that outside the haze filming over his eyes, the world keeps on spinning.

The coffee mug feels warm in Rust's hands and he relishes the heat licking up his arms, making him shiver when it crawls over his shoulder blades. He doesn't want to actually drink any, but supposes the warmth can't hurt. Marty gives him a professional side-eye and swallows his mouthful of food with minor difficulty. “Got you some of that cabbage salad you like, with the chicken and the ramen pieces,” he says, indicating a styrofoam box in the center of his desk space that Rust had somehow missed.

Laurie's been gone three weeks now, and Marty's been overly nice to him everyday since, bringing him lunch, dancing around his feelings, even holding the goddamn door for him. Rust appreciates it, if only for the “visible” feeling it gives him, but hates the sympathy, even if it's well intended. He finds that the only thing he really misses is being warm at night. That animal need. Warmth. God he wants it. He hunches into his jacket a little more, wishing the AC wasn't always cranked up to the fucking hilt. Louisiana summers be damned. He came down here to get away from the fucking cold. He thinks about hibernation, animals sinking down into dank, claw-dug burrows lined with fur and earth. Months of soft, warm, darkness. Drifting away into that cozy black has a certain appeal that he's afraid to linger on for too long.

“Thanks.” He says, but when he swallows it feels like his throat is full of broken glass. He doesn't think he'll eat anytime soon.

“You get it?” Marty asks, almost as an afterthought. He means the confession.

“Yeah.”

“Nice one man.” Marty congratulates with one of his easy, gap-toothed grins, as though Rust hadn't already done this a thousand times before. It still felt good to hear, for reasons he could not imagine or understand.

“Mm. Open and shut.”

A beat. Rust takes a sip from his cup, feeling it warming his core, then sets it down as lightly as he can manage with his suddenly clumsy fingers. “Gonna step outside a minute,” he says and climbs to his feet, shouldering his messenger bag.

“Yeah, I'll be here.” Marty answers distractedly, hen-pecking at the keyboard with all the furrowed brow determination of a man dismantling a bomb. “Hey, we gotta head out pretty soon, that fuckin' scene up in Bunkie, I don't want to wait for the I-49 to get backed up at the end of the lunch hour.” Marty calls, and Rust throws up a hand in acknowledgment as he drifts toward the break room.

~=+=+=+=~

Rust idles beside the quietly chugging refrigerator and pulls an unopened cough syrup container out of his bag. He peels open the white wrapped box of the Robitussin. _Dextromethorphan_ in ten milligrams per five milliliter dose. Four days of head pressure and he could think of little else to ease it. The sound of tearing paper makes his teeth want to recede into his jawbone, but the smooth lacquered surface of the bottle feels good in his fingers. He wastes no time. The cap twists off with easy practiced motions. That familiar push and turn. He tips the bottle back letting almost the entire thing sink into his mouth, that awful green filling every empty crevice and slipping over his tongue like a writhing pile of eels. It takes one more swallow to finish it off then he dumps the empty bottle in the takeout bag loaded garbage can.

Rust closes his eyes and stands very still for a long moment, the back of his hand coming up to briefly touch his mouth. The irony of his actions after the conversation he just had, does not escape him.

Wet slimy green oozes into his stomach like leaking trashwater. The instant nausea calls him back to a time in on a different hot and humid Louisiana day in a car when he'd had the same coffee/cough syrup cocktail for lunch and what the end result of that decision had been. How he couldn't quite handle doing this anymore. How for some reason he always thought it would help, but it never did. How fucking _stupid_ he feels. He spins on his heel and swallows and swallows and swallows, messenger bag bumping his hip, walking deliberately and mechanically toward the lockers.

The communal men's locker room stinks like damp cement and old shoes, that taste of stagnant water and cesspools making his mouth sweat and his stomach churn. Rust makes it to the bathroom stall and his knees strike the cement hard but without pain, he's only aware of how good it is to be heaving everything up and out, cleansing out that fucking green, and how grateful he is that nobody else is in here to witness him. When it ends, eyes and nose streaming, Rust rests his head on the plastic lid above cool white porcelain and pants, waiting for the pain in his head and throat to ease. He thinks of every sweaty ass in the CID slipping around on the seat cover and gags again. When he gets up, he moves slow, but the stall swims a little in his vision. Lights twinkle like they could be spots on his eyes but he knows better. He blinks them away before they can evolve into something brighter and less real.

At the sink, Rust rinses his mouth with a brand new bottle of scope and spits a gentler green over blonde cornsilk hairs lining the porcelain. Marty's probably. His hair's been thinning out over the last year. Rust gets a rare good look at himself in the dingy spotted mirror: his eyes are two black coins staring glassy and red rimmed out from his face like the black-holed sunken sockets of a half rotted skull. His cheeks and forehead feel swollen but he looks hollowed out, carved clean from steel. His skin is the color of that moldy film that grows on the surface of old milk and tastes like paint of the same color. His hair is kept cropped short these days, and it sticks out a little uneven in places, sweat making it curl damp and sticking it to his temples. _The Curly Girl_ closed eight months back, and he never could quite bring himself to go somewhere else.

Rust splashes water on his face again and drinks from water he cups in his hands. He doesn't let his eyes linger on himself for long.

Absently, he wriggles a finger in his left ear, hoping to alleviate some of the block but stops when it starts to hurt. Sounds remained muffled and crackled on that side. The words _acute otitis media_ come to mind. _Sinusitis_. _Fucking summer cold_. He's never had to do anything special for them before, just let things run their course. It would be uncomfortable for a while and then it would stop, he was certain of it.

Outside under the roof to avoid the rain, he sucks down a cigarette in four long pulls, watching the lightning flicker like synaptic misfires of the very Earth. The butt is dropped into a mostly full, moisture rusted Folger's can at his feet.

~=+=+=+=~

The rain falls in gossamer curtains of silver and blue, a tropical storm heralding in the wet heat of high summer. The droplets feel icy and slimy like frozen bog water striking his skin, soaking into his hair to sluice off of his skull. In moments of hyperfocus, he can see the water striking the Earth in nature documentary time-lapse, mud bursting free from the layer of topsoil like miniature landmines, the explosions scourging his skin with icefire and shrapnel. Rust curls into the passenger seat of the car, hands folded up into his armpits, his police issue windbreaker damp and sticky like a shroud of wet tissue paper.

Marty purses his lips and fucks with the radio, brow furrowing when static emerges in roving orange clicks from his usual station. With a scowl and a low mumble of defeat he switches it to NPR. The softly speaking voices crawl over Rust in a soothing wave, and he sinks down into the passenger's seat a little more.

They slink down the highway among an entourage of police vehicles crawling north to Bunkie. Behind them, Bobby Lutz flashes his police lights and Marty gives him the finger in the rear-view mirror, chuckling, like there is a private joke being shared between them.

Rust drifts away again into unformed lands without meaning to. The landscape blurs into a wash of moving colors as sounds fade into the background. Lightning spreads in orange and white creamsicle fingers through the cumulonimbus. Rain hemorrhages from the sucking chest wound in the nimbostratus. Thunder rolls in tones, deep and resonating, he couldn't smell very well at the moment but remembers that it was supposed to be something like purple and blue. He only notices he's shaking when Marty turns down the AC and asks if it's too cold with the skeptical, exasperated tone of someone who is practically coming unglued at the seams from the oppressive heat and humidity. Rust knows he should be hot, the thermostat's pushing ninety six with high humidity, but he can't quite shake the chill that has set its icy hands through his flesh and reaches down into his very bones.

 _'Remember where you come from,'_ it says in a voice that sounds almost like his father's, _'No loyalty in you boy.'_

 _'I'm from Texas,'_ he thinks. _'Alaska is just where you took me.'_

After a time, Rust realizes that the voice he hears is the radio narrator talking about the results of an overhaul on welfare reform, before Marty switches again to try and find a classic rock station with a good signal. Sweat beads up heavy on his brow at the thought of new, auditory hallucinations developing to accompany the visual misfires. Optimistically, he wants to believe it's a fever, the hypothalamus breaking down and dragging his senses along with it, but he's not sure if he even has one.

The pain in his head is worse now, breathing through his nose impossible, and he can't smell a fucking thing. Entire fields of sensory experience have drifted away, leaving empty, unknowable space behind. His stomach gnaws at him in displeasure, the untouched salad resting in the backseat where Marty left it for him. His throat feels like raw meat and he's almost glad of the dryness, can't think of a worse torture than swallowing the secretions of his own fucking mouth. When he glances out the passenger window again it looks like it could be snowing, rain catching the light and glowing in balls of white crystalline. Years slipped by in an endless cosmic funeral procession, but some things never did get any better. Scenes crawl by in funhouse paintings of smeared faces and places and trying to focus on anything specific only makes his head hurt worse. He wants to bury himself in the comfort of work but there's little he can do until they get there, and Marty doesn't seem like he's in the mood to talk. Hell, Rust isn't either. He closes his eyes and inclines his head toward Marty, away from the window, and thinks about that warm darkness again.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

The house is a French colonial style plantation, typical to the area, and hidden down the winding rabbit warren of a long tunnel of oaks. The dark sky cast everything in a blue haze and the trees looked so green and lush he could picture ones similar lining the riverbanks in the garden of Eden, but there was an algae-like mold taste to them that coated his tongue like cheap crisco frosting. Bad deeds were done here.

Pale yellow paint and a white trim so ornate decorated the house to the point that the building sat upon the manicured green grass lawn looking like a thousand dollar wedding cake. There were several front facing alterations made, probably not too long after it had been built, to incorporate large white columns in the tired out style of Greek revival, shameful in its extravagance. Rust thinks of the Romans watching Christians being devoured by lions and slaves fighting for their lives in the Colosseum, grand theaters of death. Some displays of wealth, and power, and violence could alter their form, but never really changed all that much at their core. Massive hand blown glass windows drop from the ceiling right down to the porch floor and Rust commits the building to memory, mind beginning to work over theories, motives, all the unformed possibilities that had yet to be pulled from the ether.

“Now this is money,” Marty had said when they'd pulled up near the garage of the pebble laid driveway, “Why the fuck would they kill their own kid?”

“Mmm,” was all Rust could say back, sniffing hard and swallowing. It was an irrelevant observation for the most part. Money did not help people curb their baser instincts, only made it easier for them to get away with it.

Inside they ascended a staircase lined in a carpet of bergundy wine, the flavor bursting raspberry on his tongue. A marvelous crystal chandelier hung from the center ceiling, twinkling like stars in the dim light. Paintings lined the white walls flanking the staircase and Rust met the wandering eyes of regal faces, their gazes fat with the promise of something sinister.

 _Go upstairs! Go look!_ They say, almost gleeful, and Rust stares out ahead, watching Bobby and Marty's teeth as they smile and laugh to each other over something Rust didn't hear. The stairs narrow as they ascend what feels like a hundred flights and the rise feels like a backwards journey through time. A staircase into dark territory hidden away and forgotten by the inhabitants.

That old police trick of cracking jokes when you came upon something unthinkable. Rust could never really understand it. There was no shame in facing the reality that lay in front of you, only in the denial and mockery of its presence. Cowering with giggles behind the falsities of forced words that inevitably fell flat anyways.

The lights in the attic hurt his eyes and it takes many moments before they can adjust to the transition from dark hallways to noonday brightness, but Major Ken Quesada is already there and speaking:

“I want everybody to take their thumbs out of their asses on this one, the media's already got wind of it and we can't be dragging our feet.” Quesada says to the circle of detectives that milled about the hot expanse of the attic like bored teens, but Rust stands stock still, blood drained clear out of his face, feeling as though he's walked headfirst into the open mouth of a waking nightmare.

Without the lights on the attic would've been dark as a tomb, the clouds outside so black and raging that they swallowed the sun in one massive gulp. Cobwebs crowd every forgotten corner and shadows move over aged support beams of wood like dancers in his peripherals. The wide boarded floor creaks and groans beneath their feet, kept flexible by humidity, but nothing could slow the tireless march of age. Great pink-grapefruit rectangles of insulation lay in coffin-like depressions upon the floor and an industrial fan hooked up with three sets of extension cord moves the air around the room in a storm of a different kind. Rust thinks of fiberglass shards catching wind and sliding down into his lungs, cutting and burning finer than spun glass to lie in wait and grow there like mold. A cancer twenty years down the road that would fill his lungs up with fluid and finally shuffle him off this mortal coil. If only he could be so lucky.

Floodlights crack through the darkness in one long frozen flash of the sky's fury. The sullen murmurs of voices rumble through Rust like the distant chanting of monks, and the strange, yet familiar ritual of police work is a soothing balm upon his churning mind. He sniffs and scrubs at his nose with the back of his wrist, breathing open mouthed in the humid, dusty air. Vomiting here, now, with these people around him, would be an unforgivable display of weakness. His eyes swivel about roughly in his head like the hand carved wooden eyes of a puppet. Blinking feels like thirty days of sunless winter and he folds himself into his windbreaker, letting it shield him like armor, and throws himself into all the little details:

Camera flashes wink in his eyes like stars, dreamlike and ethereal. Like he's not really sure if the light is real or imagined or is just the lightning reaching for them through their lone rectangular window to the outside world. The high powered floodlights flicker a moment following a heavy boom of thunder and everyone glances up, then back down again. Everything blurs when he turns his head too quickly, he gets slightly dizzy, and the stifling heat of the attic seems unable to penetrate the icy aura that closes around him. He feels the dampness of his coat and suit jacket sitting on him like a dying lizard's skin he's yet to shed. Rainwater and sweat run in icy droplets down his neck and he feels the strands curling at the base and tickling like the soft footsteps of moving insects.

The DB rests at the center of their worship circle. The elephant in the room. Michelle Adkinson. A dead girl lying in a trunk so old it would have crumbled to powder had wet Louisiana heat not kept the leather of it supple and loose like it was still living. The small pair of Mary Janes upon the girl's feet shine like the backs of black beetles in the all burning brightness of the floodlights.

Rust lets himself look. Knows he has to look. It's his job, and he's good at his job. Is _here_ to do the fucking job, but she's wrapped up in a dress of pale poppy pink and plastic like an antique doll someone wanted to preserve. Eyes closed in a way that suggests she could have been sleeping, long lashes fanned down against her cheeks like black lace, but the ligature marks around her pale throat and the bruising around her eyes suggest otherwise. She's not had the chance to suffer the ill effects of the heat. Dead less than a day. Found by a cleaning lady looking for stored curtains to hang up in the sitting room. He throws up hurdles in his mind, stopping his thoughts from running beyond into the bone strewn graveyard of his memories, but he glimpses them ahead like distant mountains anyways.

He has to read her age five times over before it can fully sink in, _three years old. Three years old. Threeyearsold-_

_One more than Sophia had, but it all ends the same way. That warm dark. That two dimensional disc of time. Little girls dying young in all moments. Parents devouring the young they birthed through neglect or otherwise, a grim ouroboros. The future, the past, and the present coalescing in one long string of time and death and cycle._

All at once he's glad of the cold, glad of the ache and the dizziness, it's easy to detach himself from this reality and slip into a different kind, but Marty's shoulder is warm where it bumps his and he's asking him “You alright?” quietly enough for only him to hear. Rust's aborted half nod doesn't change the bulldog expression on Marty's face, nor does it remove him from Rust's orbit, and the blonde haired man stalks around him in a half circle, never more than three steps away. The awareness and _knowing_ in the looks Marty throws him are almost palpable.

 _Are you alright?_ Like he actually gives a shit. Like it's such an easy question to answer.

It began to feel like gears are starting to grind and seize in his head, and he felt it was safer to ease down to the floor into a crouch. Do the Work. Focus on shape and form of hard line rather than tiny hands and wisps of blond hair finer than cotton candy. The drawing takes shape under his hand in an empty page, the crisp paper felt good under the pads of his fingers. The black pen makes sharp, unbroken lines against the paper with his guidance and it's easy to disconnect.

“Jesus, the shit people get up to,” Marty says, the skin going tight around his eyes. He doesn't quite look at their vic, his gaze moving just above or slightly to the left of her, far more interested in the stray rolls of plastic lying like dead doves upon the dust covered attic floor, “why would you do something like that if you had all this money? Too hard to think of a fuckin' alternative?”

Rust blinks and looks directly at their vic again, reminds himself of the job.

People everywhere got up to the same shit, no matter what part of the world they lived in. Some were just born evil, be they rich or poor. They pretend to fit into the body of society, just enough to slip under the radar like a virus the body doesn't have an immunity to, but they wreak havoc upon everything within the form of society like a poisonous plague. Inside the locked room of the minds of these people lives a maelstrom of churning fears and desires that go somewhere beyond instinct, because of this, man will always be the cruelest animal.

The corners of Marty's lips quirk up in a half smile that doesn't reach his eyes and he plants his hands on his hips with a small shake of his head. “Christ, mister ray of fucking sunshine over here. Trust you to brighten up the room, Rust.”

Rust hadn't realized he'd said all that out loud. Nobody else had looked or really noticed, and that was what mattered he supposed. He was ignored for the most part unless he was the one doing the debriefing. It was better that way. Couldn't have anyone thinking he was losing it. Didn't want to get put on mental health leave. Couldn't afford to, but he tallied off the reasons they might give if such a thing were to occur: _PTSD, exhausted nerves, mental exhaustion-_

“What do you see?” Marty asks him softly, then begins to gnaw at the inside of his cheek in that way he does when he's uncomfortable or thinking just a bit too much.

Rust swallows and gives the body of Michelle Adkinson another clinical sweep. The blue gloves he holds in his hands become moist with sweat within moments. He doesn't put them on. He draws deeply from the hot muffled air before he begins to speak:

“She was moved here, not too long after death. Light bruising around her wrists like she'd been physically restrained. Heavily abraded knees and elbows with no evidence of any kind of first aid treatment. Few days old,” Rust says, air whistling lightly through his teeth on every 's' in a familiar way, but his voice doesn't sound much like his own, like he's listening to someone else far away or filtered through thick, damp cloth. Marty's jaw works idly and he stares pointedly at Rust's shoes before he starts taking photos with a small digital camera.

“Ligature marks and barely visible bruising around her neck,” Rust says, miming the location upon himself with a curving motion of his hand, “significant swelling. Something like nylon or coated rope maybe. Something soft. Should become more visible over time as the skin dries. Possible fracture of larynx and hyoid bones in the neck and I suspect a tracheal collapse. Not an accidental death and coverup.”

Another deep breath and he continues, “Bruising around the- uh-” he swallows hard and his throat burns like a shot of battery acid filtered through whiskey, like a hot water pipe, like the Tabasco sauce he tried to go easy on for his stomach, but eats anyway because he likes it. He blinks through the sudden shocking pain of it, “bruising around the h-head, days old, suggesting a... blow with a blunt object a few days prior to death. Check for a past history of abuse, frequent hospital visits, and police calls.”

He didn't have much else to say, they were already dusting the plastic sheeting for fingerprints. Rust suspects petechiae, redness in the conjunctiva of the eyes, but not even threats by knife or gunpoint could make him touch her.

It was when he made to get back up to stretch his numbing legs, that things went a little slipshod around him. Vision dimmed to darkness and the room tipped topsy turvy while his ears rang in a sharp unending tone of a bloody coppery smell. His hand finds Marty's shoulder and grips tight while he sways precariously in place, eyes closed against the black stars dancing in his vision.

Prickling, icy burn washes up and down his spine in waves and his nose drips like a poorly plugged faucet. Sniffing makes it worse so he pushes his face into the crook of his elbow instead. He feels the eyes of every person in the fucking room crawling over him but this is surprisingly not at the top of his list of concerns. His head hurts so bad he wants to never open his eyes again. Hurts so bad he wishes he were blind, would claw his own eyes out to bring that permanent dark if he could. Hurts so goddamn fucking bad he wants to crawl right into the trunk next to the room temperature corpse of Michelle Adkinson and never leave again. Nausea crawls over him like a rising tide at the very thought. If he looks at her now he'll empty whatever's left lingering in his gut all over the crime scene, he's positive. He keeps his eyes tightly closed and waits for the room to stop shifting.

“Jesus, you ok? You need water?” Marty asks low and Rust feels a hand coming around to palm at his hip, a steadying touch that feels as foreign as the sweat that coats his skin like fallen rain. He answers with a slow up and down bob of his head, eyes still clamped shut against the light and the cold he knows isn't there, but is there all the same. Thunder booms around them like a second pulse living outside of his body.

“Yeah, uh, you _ain't_.” Marty shoots back with a little snort and a headshake. Rust opens his eyes after a moment and is relieved to see that everything appears to be just as he left it. _He could do this._

“Then why'd you fuckin' ask?” Rust snaps back at him, but his voice barely carries above a raspy whisper, too soft to deliver any real venom.

Marty rolls his eyes, “yeah, your fuckin' attitude man,” he says and steps away. Rust finds that he misses the heat. He catches Steve and Demma's eyes looking at them and Rust stares at them until they look away, muttering under their breath. Those fucks were like a couple of circling sharks, just waiting for him to slip up so that they could devour him. He didn't think he could hate them anymore than he already did, but shit, they just kept on blowing his mind.

“Sorry,” Rust apologizes quickly, because he doesn't want to fight with Marty. He doesn't. “just tired is all,” he lies, because he was fucking damned if he was gonna leave without getting what he came here for. “Not been getting much sleep.”

“That much-” Marty says, clicking the button on the top of his camera and then squinting at the image on the small screen with pursed lips, the barest hint of a pink tongue poking out between his teeth, “-is evident.”

He stalks around the body, getting a shot from all angles, eyes still not really seeing her. “Fucking old news by now Rust, Christ.”

“I'll be alright.” Rust says, because that's all he can think of.

“You sure you ok to stay?” Marty asks quieter, in the tone he reserves for when his girls get carsick on those infrequent trips to the lake, “meant it when I said you looked like dogshit.”

“M'alright, gotta see the rest of the house.” Rust says with the slow burning rise of a stubborn streak rearing its head within him, and closes his ledger with a firm snap. Marty shrugs at him and keeps on snapping photos. Rust finally, _finally_ fishes a crumpled package of tissues from the inside of his windbreaker and blows his nose the best he can. It helps some, but everything else still hurts just the same.

He raises his eyes up to Quesada's and asks loud and clear as a sunny day, “Can we see the cellar?”

 


	3. Chapter 3

A lone swinging bulb at the center of the ceiling chases the dark away enough to see by. Pale stonework lines the walls and curve up into fragile crumbling archways marking the entrances to other rooms cloaked in heavy shadow. The damp stone smell comes to Rust in bassy, rumbling notes to match the storm far above them. Reminds him of cold rivers running through caves, blind white creatures swimming within. This seemed to be the only part of the house that yet to be restored to its former glory, but if you really want to know the dark truth of a place, you need look no further than the state of its foundations. This cellar, buried underneath the veneer of normality like a dirty little secret. A tomb ready made to receive the death wrought above it.

“The mom's been missing since yesterday, dad's still out in Minnesota on business, flying back in tonight. Her car's still here though. Thinking she might've gotten a ride out with somebody. We've already got a canvas going, pictures put out,” Marty explains, scuffing his feet against the dusty stone floor while he fucks with the heavy, black maglight in his hands, having put the batteries in upside-down.

“Piece a' shit.” Marty mutters, then gets it back in working order. He swings the light around with the tentative excitement of a child in a carnival spook house.

Rust shivers in the cooler air of the cellar, feeling strange, like his head's not really here, or like the whole scene is an odd dream he's moving through. It's not as if he's delirious, but he has a strong sense of a general wrongness that he can't quite put his finger on. Tiredness. Dizziness. Something else maybe. He thinks about the sapphire blue cold and flu sinus pills he's got waiting at home on the counter, tasting the slimy dissolvable casings in his mouth already. Easier to stomach than the cough syrup, even if they take a little longer to do anything. He hasn't bought any 'ludes in a couple years now, relying more on a better diet and a few shots of whiskey to put him to sleep, but in the last few weeks he's been considering it. These days he worked a little harder to keep his vices in check.

“What were you thinking we were gonna find down here again? Aside from a broken neck when we trip over something in the dark.” Marty asks, steps slow and measured a few feet away.

“Killing floor. Michelle didn't die in that fuckin' trunk.” Rust answers, breathing open mouthed and wiping his nose firmly over his sleeve again. He was almost out of tissues.

“Might be hard to get prints off a rope, but maybe she used a cord.” Marty suggests.

Rust gives him a bit of side-eye, “She?”

“Might've been the mom.” Marty begrudgingly admits with a loose shrug of his shoulders.

“Ain't jumpin' to conclusions now?” Rust asks.

Marty snorts, “Fuck off, you think it's her too.”

“Mmhm, I do.”

Rust glances back at the winding stone staircase that disappears up and out of sight, noting that no one else has bothered to follow them down here. Carefully, with shaky fingers, he takes the opportunity to tap out another cigarette, counting the other five left clattering around in the slightly damp box. The flame light from the zippo lighter cuts a clean orange slice against the wall and the smoke he pulls into his lungs eases his headache from a vice grip down to a firm squeeze, the constriction of blood vessels reduces the swelling in his face enough to breathe around and he relaxes slightly. It almost feels like a goddamn miracle cure. Should've been chain-smoking from the very start, not that it would've helped the vertigo any. The only thing that would help him now would be to focus on the task at hand.

“Doing alright?” Marty asks him, as though he might've gotten a read on Rust's mind. He follows the low hanging smoke trail Rust leaves in his wake like breadcrumbs to an answer.

“You gonna bring me saltines and ginger ale?” Rust responds absently, shining his blue plastic sky flavored Rite Aid flashlight into all the webbed out corners.

“You keep on I just might, how's about you try not being a prick for five fucking seconds?” Marty grouses.

Rust decides not to answer, and they walk shoulder to shoulder through an archway of darkness to the next room. Two souls entering the wide, swallowing mouth of a black tomb. The lone swinging lamp winks behind them like an illusion of safety, and thunder booms slow and ominous high above them. Marty's flashlight finds ancient wooden casks of wine and bourbon, the wood encasing them gone dark and hazy with age and layers upon layers of dust. He tastes the sharp amber gasoline burn of alcohol in his mouth, curling up to smolder in his nose like a lit flame.

“Hoo boy, think these're still good?” Marty says, brushing his fingers over the curve of the nearest barrel. Rust stares at the clean path Marty's fingers leave in the dust and feels that weird sensation crawling over him again, a bizarre feeling of unreality and hyperfocus he can't really control. He fixates upon silvery threads of spiderwebs, stretching out in miniature tight rope cables between the casks. It is only when he manages to tear his eyes away that his gaze falls upon the disturbed marks present in the dust on the floor.

“See that?” Rust says and illuminates the marks with his flashlight.

Marty comes in next to him, the bulk of his shoulder brushing close like the heat from a furnace. A boom comes from above them like the closing of the heavy stone door on a tomb, sealing them inside.

Marty squints at the marks in the dust, “Like somebody's been dragged.”

“Mm.”

Marty drops a half folded notecard marking the location, and they give the marks a wide berth, flashlights trained upon the floor. Rust thinks of horror movie timing, introduced to him by the few films he'd seen at the drive-through theater in another life, _The Shining_ , _The Thing._ He imagines his flashlight beam hitting upon a pair of feet, a pool of dark blood spreading out like oil beneath them, or a grotesquely mutilated face. A dead eyed, half devoured corpse like in _Night of the Living Dead._ He deliberately does not think of a dead girl in her coffin of a trunk three flights above them, so preserved and unmarred even by death that he half expects his light to fall upon her pale form at the next turn of a corner, her eyes opened like two black pits to swallow him.

Rust sucks upon the cigarette in his shaking fingers so hard that it squeaks against his lips, the smoke he exhales shrouds him like a protective barrier against the spirits of the dead. His hands feels clammy and cold like the rest of him, pale waxy tasting like those red candied wax lips. Corpse-like. Briefly, he wonders if he's been buried alive down here, wandering this endless black tomb until his flashlight batteries burn out, plunging him into darkness.

 _Hypothalamus, fever, waking dreams_ , he reminds himself, clocking Marty's shuffling presence a few feet to his left. These thoughts only bring other reminders, his ear, his head, his eyes, his body, all hurting. Quickly, he buries those thoughts down and retrains his eyes to the smooth drag marks upon the floor.

In the next room, a massive forgotten furnace sits cold in the corner, shrouded in dust, and beyond it, weak sapphire light leaks in through the ajar bulkhead door, swaying gently in the wind. Outside the storm is waning, low rumbles and flashes coming in bursts like the tiring efforts of a temperamental toddler.

“No one else been down here?” Rust asks, eyes fixed upon the sliver of night flavor blue peeking through the doorway, leaking rainfall moistening the stairs.

Marty frowns at the swinging door, “Shouldn't be.”

In Rust's haste to reach the door, he nearly steps on a half torn open panty hose box, and a few steps away, a long line of the sheer black fabric lays like a coiled snake upon the floor, it's twin conspicuously missing. Ahead the aging wooden door at the top of five stone steps beckons like a promise.

“Seems an odd place to get all gussied up.” Marty remarks and drops another notecard down, “think we found our murder weapon- hey where the fuck you goin'?”

Rust doesn't pause to answer, only pushes the door open wide and slips out into the wet dark of the yard.

~=+=+=+=~

 

The moss hung oak trees rise up around him in tall jagged lines of silhouetted black. The sun has nearly set and the light is dim, the world laid down under a curtain of flickering midnight blue. Rain still falls and renews the dampness of his coat, the fabric sticking to him and sogging like dry rotted leaves. Rust isn't entirely sure why he passed through the well kept garden and the little greenhouse shed, slipping into the treeline. Call it a hunch, a feeling, a premonition dictated to him by the vision of a swinging bulkhead door, but he knows with bone deep certainty that he's going to find something out in these woods, in the same way that he knew he would find the devil net in the shed behind the house of Marie Fontenot, and the same way he knew he would find the paintings, signs of the Yellow King, within the hollows of a burnt out church.

Wet falling footsteps thump in behind him and Marty's already panting and wheezing from running the short distance before he falls into step behind him. “Jesus, you take as long as a month of Sundays to get to the car when I'm calling you over but when you wanna move you can fucking _move_.” Marty snaps, gulping in mouthfuls of rain soaked air and clutching at a stitch in his side, “you having some kinda Alaskan call of the wild bullshit I ain't heard of before? The fuck you gonna find out here?” The trees part in a narrow, unkempt path before them and Rust can't see any end to it in the dark, but he guesses there might be some sort of clearing at the end. He can smell that dog shit stink of rotting leaves, sees the shimmering wisps of the scent leaving the Earth in spiderweb strings of mahogany. He blinks it away.

“I don't think Carla Adkinson ever left, her car's still here, and that bulkhead door was open. Think she strangled Michelle down there in the cellar, maybe threw the other pantyhose into the furnace, I know we didn't look, but I think it'll be there. Then she brought her upstairs and put her in the trunk.” Rust explains, stretching one long leg over a fallen log and reaching for Marty's hand to help him before he's waved off with a frustrated flap.

The forest is black, the trees crowding in together like the bars of a cage, the underbrush growing up in clumps and the ground they walk upon is soft and springy, Dead leaves upon moss upon dirt, tree roots trying to catch the stride of their feet. Marty makes an impatient sounding noise and shoves a damp handkerchief into Rust's hands which he blows his nose on gratefully.

“I think she might've gone back down there to pick things up, maybe got other ideas, maybe she went outside and left the bulkhead door open like she wanted someone to follow and find her.” Rust continues, then sniffs, his nose gone cold at the tip and running like a faucet, snot dripping down the back of his burning throat. He notices that he shivers when he stands still, so he keeps moving to alleviate it. He feels that unsettling sensation of unreality and wonders if maybe there's something more wrong with him than he realizes.

“What'd I say about jumping to conclusions? You get these goddamn ideas in your head with little to no context for them, you make these narratives Rust and you can't fucking be right every time.” Marty argues, “I know you were right about, about Reggie Ledoux and all that shit way back then, but Jesus you're gonna get pneumonia out here doing this shit, hows about we go back and get a canvas dog and let one of those fucks find her for us or something, Christ knows they ain't got nothing to fucking do-”

All at once the trail opens up into a dim clearing housing a lone, craggy oak. It twists up from the earth like a skyscraper, an ancient tree so large that it would've needed six men at least, lined up arm to arm, to wrap around the trunk, and even then their hands might not've touched.

They both see her at the same time.

Black, that color that tastes of olive oil charcoal. A black figure, suspended from a rope secured around a sturdy branch. Arms hanging down limp at her sides, feet dangling and pointing duck toed into the open air. Her shoes were the same beetle black as her daughter's. When Rust raises his flashlight to get a look at her face, he vaguely wishes he hadn't: her eyes are half open, going dark around the rims, and her tongue lolls out grotesquely like a piece of liver, bloodied and dripping from where she had bitten it in the throes of suffocation. She didn't die easy. _Carla looked different when she was alive,_ he thinks. _No relief on her face here, no escape from what she'd done. Her sentence handed out to her by the branches of the hanging tree._ He feels some small sense of peace, of justice, filling in one of a thousand holes littering his heart. Some sense of relief that at least she had gotten what she deserved, just like the crankhead in '89. He feels no pity for this woman, thinks absently that if he'd found her here, alive and waiting for them, he might've strung the rope over the branch and tightened the noose himself.

He looks deep into her face, her body swaying gently in a wet wind and only moves the flashlight away when he is reminded of Marty beside him.

“Fucking Christ.” Marty says lowly, shaking is head and stalking around on the ground in a slow arc, “can't take much more of this shit, Jesus fuck.” He closes his eyes and rubs a hand over his face, releasing a slow, heavy breath.

“Gotta head back, get the cavalry.” Rust says, and his voice echoes strange in his own ears. One blocked, one not. Marty nods in assent and they turn to head back but the world moves in a way it shouldn't when Rust turns around.

 _Another headrush_ , he thinks right away, but instead of clearing, the colors around him drain out to grey and black stars dance through the sky as someone pours rainwater over the glass of his eyes. He is aware of his center of gravity coming unhinged at its connections and rolling out and away from him. He reaches for Marty's shoulder again to right himself, thinking it would pass if he could just keep himself upright, but his fingers close around empty air.

Someone says his name, someone says _'hey, hey man, hey-'_ but he can't hear or see much of anything at all anymore. The passing thunder and drizzle seem to crawl inside of him and time skips into a rhythm he can no longer identify or follow.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a thousand lifetimes. Also didn't edit too much so there might be some mistakes floating around in here.

When Rust comes back to himself he's sitting down on something soft and wet, and it takes a moment for him to recognize it as damp earth, that rich smell of simultaneous life and decay doing its damnedest to crawl deep into his nostrils despite his nose struggling to expel it right back out again. He buries his nose in his sleeve and sniffs. His head pounds like a black war march and cold water is starting to soak through his pants as he sits with his head between his knees, drawing deep, slow drags of the fermented air in through his teeth. A wave of prickling heat dances up his spine and crawls over his shoulder blades like veins of liquid fire, he breaks into a clammy sweat and thinks for a moment he might be sick, but the feeling passes as quickly as it came. Just as a precaution, he keeps his head down and breathes open-mouthed while Marty clutches onto his forearm tightly and flutters around him like a disturbed mother robin, squawking up a storm.

“Jesus, are you alright? _Rust?_ You just keeled right over,” Marty fusses then releases his arm, hands hovering out like like the spread feet of wood duck coming in for a pond landing, “almost busted your head clean open on that fucking log.”

“I black out?” Rust rasps, it feels like he's just woken from some kind of slumber, everything too loud and disorienting in the encroaching darkness.

“What d'you think?” Marty shoots back, “you been acting fucked up all week. You shoulda stayed home,” he lectures. The low accompanying rope creak from the still hanging Mrs. Adkinson adds an additional degree of unpleasantness to the atmosphere, and Rust remembers why the Hell he's even out here in the first place.

Rust lurches forward onto the heels of his feet in an attempt to will his corporeal form to rise up before the roots and plants take him deeper into wet detritus, leaving him to rot there among the browning leaves at the swaying feet of a dead woman. He tries not to think about how warm and dark it would be, buried down beneath the moist earth.

“Can you get up?” Marty asks after a moment, and all at once Rust's chest aches with the feeling that he has once more become a terrible burden. A failure. Someone who isn't fit to do The Work and should never've even fucking been here in the first place. Marty says he should've stayed home like it's just that fucking easy. He's never taken a day off or called out sick in his entire life. The only time he remembers even leaving early was when Claire had gone into labor at the hospital, and even then the reason had been for someone else, never himself. He's furious at his own vessel's utter betrayal.

“M'alright. Let me up, let me up.” Rust says, wobbling on his heels and reaching out for the flanking fallen trees for purchase as though they might carry him back to his feet if his partner refuses.

Marty purses his lips and shines the flashlight around on the ground at Rust's feet. “Yeah, uh, hows about you just rest easy there a minute, don't wanna push your-”

“My ass is gettin' wet, goddamnit Martin, just- help me the fuck up.”

“Your panties getting wet and twisted too? Jesus.” Marty grunts and grasps Rust firmly by the wrist, hauling him back to his feet.

Rust closes his eyes a moment upon becoming vertical once more, the world tipping and spinning beyond his eyelids and he feels the weight of whatever physical ailments he's been afflicted with settling down over him like a fog. His throat burns, saliva and post nasal drip slipping down in trickles of hydrochloric acid, his head is pounding and he's so _tired_ , so tired. The air smells like copper and gasoline, and he's so fucking angry he clenches his fingers tight around the flashlight he wasn't aware he was still clutching until his hand hurts and the plastic creaks in warning.

Rust spares another glance to the hanging woman and her tomb of steadily darkening sky. “We gotta go back, tell the others.”

“I know, just ease on up would you? You wanna be out on your ass again?” Marty asks and reaches for him, dragging Rust's arm up and over his shoulder before any protests can touch the air.

“Get your fuckin'... get your fuckin' hands off me Marty, c'mon-” Rust hisses and squirms halfheartedly like an angry snake, trying to wrench away without expending the necessary energy or throwing off his balance again. Marty's hand goes tight on his wrist and a hand just barely brushes the edge of his hip and Rust knows he's fighting a losing battle.

“No, _you_ come on, just stop being an asshole. If you pass out again I ain't gonna carry you so if you wanna get home in one piece you'll quit yer ungrateful bitchin' and let me help you.” Marty says, marching them forward with dogged determination.

Rust sighs and goes quiet, squeezing his teeth together rhythmically, his jaw flexing at his temples. He simply doesn't have the energy to combat Marty's snorting-bull stubbornness and acquiesces to the situation with a noncommittal grunt. It's slow going, and they stumble back through the dark, root lined path like a couple of lost drunks, flashlight beams spinning about akimbo from somewhere around hiplevel like misfired lemonade flavored flares.

Something that feels like a fever draws chills over him, and he shakes, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw creaks and the ache for another cigarette crawls through every vein in a long line of cold that hurts like the injection of a tetanus shot. They nearly fall when they have to cross the fallen tree again, and Marty curses a blue streak when his hand touches something slimy and wet. The forest rises and shifts around them, definitions between trees and sky blurring together and fading out. Rust thinks of Zachary Dubois rotting in a cell of his own making. Wonders if he can see the sky or the trees through his little barred prison window. Decides he doesn't give a shit. Geoffrey Williams sure couldn't see anything but the black inside of a coroner's metal body drawer, and little Michelle Adkinson wasn't gonna be seeing much beyond the soft pink silk of a child sized coffin liner.

Rust feels bile threatening to crawl up and out of his throat and he swallows hard, clenching his fist where it lies trapped in Marty's grip.

He bumps against Marty's side like a bobbing ship in stormy waters, his head gone overboard and lost somewhere in the waves. Water falling down on their heads completes the illusion, and Rust knows he wouldn't have made it back to the house without Marty's help, can't help but feel bitter about it, can't help but be angry at himself. He doesn't want to admit that the warmth feels good, even though it soaks into his side like something foreign and strange, like blood leaking from three perfect bullet holes blown clean through flesh in another life.

 

~=+=+=+=~

 

The timing is so perfect it almost feels choreographed: as Rust and Marty come back into the plantation house's backyard, the other detectives emerge from the cellar like a group of confused school children who have never seen the outside before. The motion sensor light on the corner of the house is on, lighting up the yard and sending shadows scattering around like spooked jack rabbits.

“Send in the CSI, “Marty says, breathing a little heavy and hanging a bit on Rust's arm, “Need to set up a perimeter. Carla Adkinson's hanging from the end of a rope down that path in the clearing. Looks like a suicide.”

“Jesus are you fucking shitting me?” Demma says with the gape-mouthed, horrified expression of a suffocating trout.

“Not today. Someone's gotta make a call and put a halt on her canvas.” Marty says and leads Rust over to the stone steps at the back door of the house, a few feet to the left of the cellar bulkhead.

“Ease on down here,” Marty says quiet to him, and before his damp ass even touches the cold steps, Rust is already fishing a hand into his shirt pocket with the singular determination of a hunting dog caught whiff of the scent. He yanks the slightly crumpled camel box free and pulls out a cigarette, lighting it in the same motion with a clumsy fingered click of his zippo.

“Ya wanna take it easy?” Marty grumbles at him when Rust's lips squeak around the cigarette as he drags in sharp through his mouth like a drowning man's first breath of open air. Heat lightning winks like lime camera flashes in the sky.

“Nope.” Rust says on the exhale, blowing a stream of smoke out his mouth and nostrils. He feels a bit better right away, but still a bit disoriented. He wipes his streaming nose on the damp sleeve of his windbreaker. He wants to get up, go back, get photos, get clues, take notes, do sketches. His entire Body buzzes with the need to do the Work, but his Body withers, cringes, and curls in on itself away from the cold and wetness like an animal retreating into a den. He sits there shaking, the people around him moving through the yard like shadowed ghosts, their voices drifting in the air like the distant sounds of nightbirds.

“How'd you two know to find her out here?” Rust hears Quesada ask as the CSI moves into the woods like escapees, floodlights blazing. The shadow and light begins to mingle and swarm together like oil trying to mix with water, from where Rust is sitting the light becomes a golden, wavering slipstream. The Aurora Borealis fallen down from the sky to writhe among the trees like a great dying serpent god.

Rust breathes in another lungful of smoke and closes his eyes against the sight, gold still bursting behind his eyelids. He brings up his hand to rest against the ridge of his brow, shielding his eyes from any additional visions of light.

“Went into the cellar looking for our murder weapon,” Marty says, “coonhound over there sniffed her out.” Marty explains, inclining his head toward where Rust still sits, quietly, miserably, upon the steps.

“Something wrong with him?” The Major asks as though Rust can't hear him. Rust grits his teeth, making the bone grind together, the sound cutting sharp and yellow out of his jaw.

“He's uh, not feelin' too good. Fever maybe, should probably go home.” Marty says a little awkwardly, and even with his eyes closed Rust can imagine Marty swinging his arms about like a kid, brushing invisible lint from the sleeves of his windbreaker.

“Here I figured Taxman had just busted his brains thinking so hard, putting all that effort into being a smart man.” Geraci cuts in, and Rust has had just about enough of Rummy's fucking schoolbully bullshit.

“Do your fucking job better than you do you stupid fuck, couldn't find a goddamn clue if you sucked it down your gullet from the end of a rum bottle.” Rust says calmly around his cigarette, and he feels a rush of something delicious when Rummy fixes his beady little eyes in Rust's direction. Sick or not, if Rummy comes over here Rust is fixing to finally make good on his little pipedream of busting his teeth out of his head, and the stone steps he sits on would be the perfect altar for such a necessary sacrifice of blood and bone. _Come on you cocksucker-_

“You son of a bitch-”

“Alright back up, back the fuck up,” Marty says shoving at Steve's chest then looks back in Rust's direction, “You kidding me man?”

“Fuck him.” Rust answers, easy as anything. He couldn't give half a shit about it.

Rummy has come over with a sheen of greasy sweat, his face gone beet red, “Fucking little shit stain-”

Marty pushes a little harder against the bulk of Rummy's chest, two bulls gearing up to butt heads and lock horns, “Just shut the fuck up Steve or your ass is gonna be next on the ground-”

“Jesus Christ, is this a fucking schoolyard?” Quesada is saying, eyes wide in almost comical stunned bewilderment, “Am I a goddamn kindergarten teacher? Both of you get your shit together and shut your fucking mouths or I'm suspending the both of you. You hear me? Geraci? Cohle? This is a god damned crime scene for fuck's sake.”

Rust doesn't apologize, only holds his fading cigarette between his lips, tasting the grey flavored paper. but Rummy slinks away like a wounded dog, muttering a petulant “Yeah, yeah.”

Quesada looks around at the other detectives who have gotten distracted by the show, “Alright, get back to work, Christ I want to get home tonight. Fucking peanut gallery.”

“Better get him outta here Marty, no use staying, you two have done half the job already.” Quesada says as if Rust isn't sitting right there, and the note of sympathy from the ornery Major ignites a burning wave of humiliation up his neck and Rust knows that if he were to see himself his ears would be flushed pink from the shame of it. He knows he would only make himself look more foolish by arguing, so keeps his mouth shut and stares holes into the earth.

“Yeah.” Marty says, like that's all there is to it, and Rust thinks he must look worse than he thought. “Can one of you assholes get some water?” Marty calls out with his best 'quit gawking and do something' tone, suddenly right near Rust's head and he startles at the sound. A hand settles hesitant into the space between Rust's shoulder blades, broad and warm as a fire-baked stone.

“Thanks Bobby,” Marty says over Rust's head and an uncapped bottle of water is pushed into his hands. He brings it to his lips instinctively, suddenly so thirsty his mouth feels like it's full of dryer lint and asphalt. Swallowing hurts, but then again everything does. The moisture cools his throat and sits cold in his empty stomach, but the nausea eases just enough for him to risk opening his eyes. He looks everywhere but at the faces of the others, instead fixing his gaze upon the tops of his shoes, tracing the scuff marks marring the shiny surface like he was attempting to translate an ancient scripture.

“Let's head to the car.” Marty says, and Rust can't help but note something glad in Marty's tone, like he's a little eager to leave the entire scene behind him. A dead girl and a dead woman. Rust could understand.

Rust wants to tell Marty that he's alright and that he can stay and keep working and it would be fine, but the words are trapped behind the sealed gate of his teeth and all of his concentration goes into getting his feet up under him without leaning too much on his partner. Marty grips his elbows with a gentleness Rust would have never attributed to him before now, and encourages Rust to get an arm up around his shoulders again and takes some of his weight. The close heat of him is like basking in the sun and Rust almost, _almost_ feels warm again. They hobble toward the car, and if Rust happens to dig his fingers into the meat of Marty's wrist to keep from losing his balance, Marty doesn't say another goddamn word about it.

 

~=+=+=+=~

 

“You warm enough? Cause I'm not turning the fuckin' heat on,” Marty says, eying Rust like he might expire right there in the passenger seat at any moment. "You looked healthier climbing a mountain of blow, just sayin'."

Now that's got Rust to thinking he'd probably feel a Hell of a lot better if he had some, but generally tried not to think about it too much if he could help it. Sweating out one addiction in a white four-walled room once was enough for him, and then after the Ledoux case he thought he was gonna have a heart attack for hours, and then his sleep schedule had been a fucking rollercoaster nightmare for weeks.

The car sways like a sailboat in a fresh wind and Rust's lying in the passenger seat, tilted back as far as it can go at Marty's gruff insistence. Rust doesn't care, did it just to get Marty to shut up, but admits to himself that lying down feels a bit better than sitting up. He's buried under the weight of Marty's windbreaker and suit jacket on top of his own, but nothing feels warm. Idly, he wonders if he'll ever feel warm again. His mind rolls and churns like the storm still chugging away outside, spitting rain down upon them like the End of Days. A storm to last his entire fucking life. Would they be coming back to the crime scene tomorrow? He didn't get to look long enough. Would it get passed off to someone else? Would Marty have to pair up with one of those other fucking morons instead of Rust while he convalesced at home like some kind of invalid?

And he's so fucking _angry_ , angrier than he's been in a long time. He's angry at the weather, the heat that doesn't reach him, the mother and murderer of Michelle Adkinson, fucking Rummy, Zachary Dubois, and even a little bit at Marty for reasons he ain't even completely sure of, but most of all he's angry at his Body for failing him so spectacularly at such an inconvenient moment, and himself for letting it all happen. Anger is familiar, but it's a hard emotion to keep up when he's too tired to even sit up properly. Against his will, his thoughts scatter like loose birds, building nests of chocolate milkshake and pencil shavings, and he thinks he might have fallen asleep again but no matter how hard he concentrates on sinking, nothing would go completely dark.

 

~=+=+=+=~

 

He wakes somewhere on the southbound I-49 to Lafayette, laid out in his tipped back seat like a discarded pile of sticks and rags. The black flickering sky out the window was peppered with streetlights that glowed in foggy halos like orbiting suns. Rain drums against the windshield and smears over the glass with each swipe of the wipers and Rust wonders how Noah felt when he was commanded by God to build an ark to house all that would remain of the world.

“Where are we going?” he rasps when they turn down unfamiliar roads, and it feels like he's been buried in sand, organs and fluids removed and jarred like a mummy that hasn't uttered a word in three thousand years, held fast by the cloth wrappings of a suit-jacket and two damp windbreakers.

“Taking you to Maggie,” Marty says very matter of fact, like he'd decided this some time ago.

“Why?”

“Uh, because she's a nurse? You look like shit Rust. You fucking passed out.” Marty says, like Rust's some kind of idiot.

“Don't worry about it, just drop me off at home man.” Rust says, eager for all of this to be over and done with so he can drink himself into something that might be sleep, and maybe burn the illness out with the alcohol in the process. It worked once before. Had a head cold at the Christmas party two years back and he drank a bottle of Jager all by himself. Cold was gone the next day.

“Jesus, your fuckin' attitude. You been acting funny all week, and you're all fucked up now, fuckin' shakin' like you are and sweatin' up the place like a county fair hog s'been forgotten in the sun. Maggie'd have my ass I dump you at home like this.” Marty argues like that's all there is to it.

Rust says nothing. He doesn't want to go to the fucking hospital, he doesn't want to bother Maggie, he wants to go somewhere dark and be alone so he can shake at his leisure until he stops. He watches Marty's hands on the steering wheel until his anger calms down some.

“Look,” Marty begins awkwardly, his face scrunching up and wincing in that way of his that immediately tells Rust that Marty's gonna make some kind of weak-ass attempt at having a heart to heart with him. Or rather, a Hart to heart. “I know you been, uh, _upset_ , about Lori and all but-”

“I ain't upset about Lori, Marty,” Rust says, monotone. It was just like the other man to think it could be something so simple. His problems were never just everyday shit he'd come to realize. Always beyond the scope of regular-type people to understand and even begin to bother with. He didn't want to bother anybody with any of the fucked up shit that took up residence in his head.

“What we had just run its course and there ain't much more to be said about it.” Though, Marty was at least partly right, Lori did have a little something to do with it, but only enough to clarify for him that to make the attempt at fitting in, being a normal person, was a tedious and fruitless venture. He was better now that he'd gone back to basics. Practically thriving.

“Look man, I know six years is a long time-”

“Just fucking drop it Marty.” Rust says and settles the edge of his hands over his eyes, blocking out the light of the oncoming cars in the other lane.

Marty looks at him for several seconds, jaw set, “Oh I'll drop it alright, drop you and your fucking piss-ass attitude at the hospital with fucking Lori instead and then you'll really have something to bitch and moan about.”

Rust looks at him and Marty looks back, then Rust looks away, scowling out the window into the wet dark.

 


End file.
